


Who Can It Be?

by nomercyhere



Series: 'Stories and Songs From His Era' Collection [1]
Category: Full House (US)
Genre: Angst, Denial, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hiding, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24937864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomercyhere/pseuds/nomercyhere
Summary: In a house where personal space is not a thing, Jesse has to find a way to deal with grieving either his wife, or his children. But he won't let himself know which.--Inspired by 'Who Can It Be Now?' by 'Men at Work'.
Relationships: Becky Donaldson Katsopolis/Jesse Katsopolis, Joey Gladstone & Jesse Katsopolis
Series: 'Stories and Songs From His Era' Collection [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1804927
Kudos: 8





	Who Can It Be?

The whole distancing thing was never big in the Tanner family. Personal space was a concept that was thrown out the window when you had nine people with very different lives living together in an average sized house. No, any and all boundaries were almost immediately pushed away as soon as Joey and Jesse moved in.

And some days, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes Jesse longed for contact. Needed to interact, know that he was, as egotistical as it sounded, still the great guy that he thought he was. It felt good making people laugh, talking to them, or just hanging out in silence.

But occasionally, every now and then, he just needed to get away.

Today was one of those days. Becky was on a plane to Michigan with Danny on assignment for ‘Wake Up, San Francisco’, and the twins were staying with Becky’s mom. So, naturally, Jesse was looking forward to just relaxing by himself. He really did need some downtime; this hadn’t exactly been the best month for him. It wasn’t terrible, but it was still stressful enough that it felt like if he didn’t just take a break, sit down and forget it all and just remove himself for a bit, that it would definitely get worse. He had seen worse before, and he definitely did not want it to end up that way again.

Which is why it was understandable that he was now extremely frustrated at having to sneak around his own apartment, trying not to step on a creaky floorboard or let out a sneeze, so that Michelle and Stephanie, who had been sitting outside his door knocking for about an hour now, wouldn’t think he was in there.

_‘Why don’t they just leave me alone?’_ He thought. _‘I said goodnight, I tucked them in, I left. Is it really so important that they have to bug me at three o’clock in the morning?’_

But it was. And a part of him knew that it must’ve been. Between hearing Stephanie sobbing and Michelle asking her what was wrong, he had pieced it together in his mind.

But he wasn’t going to let himself go there. Not yet. Nope. He had gone through this before, and if he’d learned anything from it, it was that life was better before it’d happened. So he’d decided, after the first 10 minutes of incessant pounding on his door, that he was going to let them knock all they wanted. He wouldn’t embrace it just yet, he’d keep it out of the picture for as long as possible.

A part of him plagued at which one it was. Becky, or the twins. It had to be one or the other.

But he pushed it away, refused to let himself slip into that headspace just yet. Now finally at his nightstand after what felt like an hour of sneaking across the floor, he reached for his headphones and Walkman and cranked the dial up as far as it could go. Maybe _Men at Work_ could drown out the impending feeling of doom he knew would find a way to sneak in sooner or later.

_‘They know I’m in here, so why do I care if I’m quiet? My bike is obviously still in the backyard, and they know I wouldn’t have gone out at this time of night.’_

With that seemingly reasonable thought, perhaps the most reasonable one of the entire night, he walked at a carelessly normal volume over to his couch, knowing full well that he could be heard through the door. Plopping down and leaning his head back, he wondered about what he would do.

Before when this had happened, with Pam, he’d had no one there that he’d had to comfort. But now, no matter who it ended up being, he’d have an entire house of people who would need him. They’d need him to be strong for them, but they’d also need to know that he was okay.

And this was a time when he knew, that in the next 30 minutes or so when whoever found the key decided to barge into his apartment and tell him who it was, that he would absolutely need personal space. And as much of it as possible. Which was yet another justification, he figured, for pushing them away now. Because he knew there was no way at all that he’d be able to push them away later.

With a sigh, Jesse removed his headphones to find that the crying and knocking had stopped. With another sigh, he leaned his head back against the back of the couch, staring up at the ceiling, starting to feel the reality of the situation seeping in. Someone was gone. Someone was gone, and they were never coming back. He’d never thought he would have had to face this again, not after Pam. That had been so wrenching, so distorting to his image of the world, that he’d pushed the possibility of anything remotely similar ever occurring out of the picture. But this. He knew whoever it was, whoever it ended up being, it would be much, much worse than the deepest part of Pam. 

Hearing a key click in the lock of his door, Jesse closed his eyes, bringing an arm up to drape over his face.

As the door creaked open and footsteps padded into the room, heavy and slow, he kept his eyes firmly shut. He wasn’t ready. He couldn’t do it yet.

“…Jess-“

“No, Joseph. Not yet. I’m not ready for this to happen again. You can go or stay, do whatever you want, but don’t tell me. I don’t even want to know.” He removed his arm from his face, sitting up properly and looking into Joey’s tear stained face. One look, at his eyes, his ever-telling eyes, gave him all the information he needed.

As Joey curled up in his lap and cried, being quickly followed by the girls, Jesse sat there in silence, his face serious but steady, with his headphones securely on his ears, his mind filled with nothing other than wishing that he’d never given out that spare key in the first place.


End file.
